The Yale behavioral economists Dean Karlan created an experiment were he tested the value of healthy food vs. non - healthy food. While testing the research he discovered that typical mothers go for the cheaper foods which is junk food, with the money left over from buying the cheaper foods the researchers noticed that the mothers spent the rest of the cash on more junk food. By that happening, the researchers lowered the prices on the healthier food and raised the prices on the junk food. The mothers bought the cheaper food again, which was the healthier food.
Most mothers in all cases will buy the cheaper food only because they get more bang for their buck which means they get their money’s worth. Karlan says a "sin tax" — charging more for unhealthful foods would not change families' diets or approach to nutrition overnight. But it could serve as a first step in raising awareness of “bad habits." The thought is by doing this it will make people think twice about what to buy when going grocery shopping and this is another way to make people choose healthier foods rather than junk food.
Buying cheaper foods may be helpful to your wallet but is it helpful to your kids? I think not, the processed food that they put on the shelf nowadays are filled with all sorts of bad things like M.S.G also known as monosodium glutamate and high fructose corn syrup which are things that are bad for your health and could possibly harm you really bad. I think that in order for people to start purchasing good healthy foods, we need to come up with a solution like Karlan came up with, raising the prices on the bad foods for grocery shoppers to buy healthy food. I also think there is no changing peoples mind on getting cheaper food because of the economy now and that’s the way most people are, but if we take one step at a time I think we would be able to progress.
By Rashawn Moore
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